Sergei Ivanenko (Yabloko)
- The main thing that happened during
Putin's year is that Yeltsin's era ended
first in actual fact and then legally. A new stage of
the country's development was launched. Putin's activity
is in public view: he began an anti-terrorist operation
in Dagestan which grew into a military conflict, he is
trying to implement economic reforms and reform of the
federative structure. At the same time pressure on the
mass media is increasing, instances of violation of human
rights are growing and becoming more frequent. When Ernest
Neizvestny made a sculpture of Nikita Khruschev at the
Novodechi Cemetery, he made it in two shades: half-white
and half-black. It symbolised the fact that there
were dark and light sides to the life (in the political
sense) of Nikita Khruschev. With some degree of approximation
we can say that this resembles Putin's
activity today. I think that his special feature is that
he is a politician of a broad spectrum. Suffice it only
to recollect the fact that he has
put wreaths on both Dmitri Sakharov's grave and Yuri Andropov's
grave.
